Pivoted implements having elongated members disposed for cooperative engagement about a pivotable joint are widely used by those desiring to transmit a force through the pivotable joint to a working piece engaged by the working surfaces of the implement. In particular, pivoted tools such as scissors generally comprise two elongated members, typically made of stamped or forged metal or other suitable material, disposed for cooperative engagement about a pivotable joint. To facilitate operation of the implement by the user, handles conforming to the fingers or hands of the user are preferably molded onto the force applying end of each elongated member, or in the case of anvil-type implements, the entire elongated member is typically made of molded material.
Conventional molding operations used to form the handles onto the force applying ends consist of positioning one elongated member in a suitable space in a die casting mold wherein the member is fixed in position with respect to the mold. A pin or the like going through the pivot point aperture in the member secures the member with respect to the mold. As described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,715,122 to one of the present inventors, the space receiving the elongated member communicates with a mold cavity for the handle portion. The cavity is subsequently filled with a fluid plastic material or the like, whereby the plastic material partially surrounds the force applying end (also called tang portion) of the elongated member so that the handle is molded onto the tang. The same operation is separately repeated to form the handle on the other elongated member. The final step in the manufacturing of scissors or other pivotable tools as described above, whether elongated members of such items have earlier been provided with molded handles, consists of bringing the apertures of the two elongated members into registration and installing the pivot member to maintain the elongated members in cooperative assembled relationship about the pivotable joint.
On the other hand, die cast articulated tools produced by the intercasting technique, such as for example those manufactured in accordance with the process disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,007,524 to Hannes et al., require several casting and adjusting operations. In particular, although the intercasting method eliminates the need to later insert a separate pivot member and screw, in such tools a pivot pin which is integrally formed with a first cast elongated member serves as a mold for the subsequent casting of the other member and pivot connection. Accordingly, more than one casting operation is required. As also disclosed in Hannes, the second casting operation is preferably followed by an appropriate adjustment of the pivot to reduce binding.
From the foregoing, it can be readily recognized that prior art methods used to manufacture pivoted tools having elongated members, such as scissors or the like, have certain disadvantages. These prior art methods typically require assembling two members which have previously been separately manufactured, or sequentially casting two members of different configuration, thereby increasing material handling requirements which generally translate into higher unit cost. Thus, it appears desirable to provide pivoted tools such as scissors or the like which can alleviate the problems associated with conventional manufacturing methods, i.e., which are engineered to lend themselves to functional assembling during, as opposed to subsequent to, the manufacturing process, or which otherwise reduce the number of operations required to manufacture these pivoted tools.